


The Search For Nine Parchments

by lrz_xx



Category: Nine Parchments (Video Game)
Genre: Astral Academy, Finding Friendship, Gen, Illustrated, Self-Doubt, Wizards, becoming friends, darkside of magic, growing up story, inner-conflict, writer's freedom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-08-26 14:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16683022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lrz_xx/pseuds/lrz_xx
Summary: This is novelization of Nine Parchments video game mainly from Carabel's perspective. However, I have taken some writer freedom when depicting Carabel, Gislan and Cornelius and their past. I based my version of them on existing details but I also modified and added a lot of things.The violence in the story is mild but as it exists I decided to add warning anyway.The main reason for writing this story was the lack of story in the game. The story felt half done and unfinished and even if the game otherwise was great the problems in the story made me pretty irritated so the only way to fix this problem was to write my own interpretation of the story and try to explain multiple things that annoyed me during the game. The only things I couldn't explain were hats and quills as they didn't really have any real reason to exist aside being random stuff you can collect and I couldn't figure out any good reason for their existence so I simply left them out from this story.





	1. Wherein Astral Academy meets a disaster and Carabel gathers the parchement rescue team

Carabel had arrived to the classroom promptly in time. As a student committee president she had to be showing good example for other students. Aside with the fact that her family’s reputation was on stake as it always was when one of them was sent to study to Astral Academy. And family reputation was an important thing in ancient wizarding family line like hers. Carabel had enjoyed her studies but was relieved to know that it was finally over and she could return home.

Professor Butternut was passing around in front of the students looking like he was going to have nervous breakdown but that was just how he was: a bunddle of messed up nerves that could burst at any moment. Carabel sighed, she couldn’t understand how such respected institute like Astral Academy could have hired some one so unstable as Professor Butternut.

“So, did we pass the test?” Cornelius, the flamaboyant snob, asked from the Professor. Carabel despised Cornelius who was more about looks than skills. He would fail for sure.

“You are all disqualified for advanced studies until further notice!” Professor Butternut exlaimed with his whiny voice. “Now you must stay here and practice.”

“We all… failed?” Carabel gasped. She couldn’t believe it. There had to be a mistake. She had been sure she would be on the top of her class. Even if she accidentally — or not so accidentally — froze Professor Butternut last week after he had criticised her ability to create balanced layered ice structures and had compared her yet again to her older brother who would have never created something so lumpy as she had on that day. The downside of being the descendant of the ancient line of wizards was that she had to hear about her predeccetors and their insuperability every day if not every hour.

Carabel sighed again. She couldn’t face her parents who would be contacting her later today to ask was she the best student of her class or the best student of the whole academy. She glanced the other students who all seemed to be in different stages of shock. Carabel wished she didn’t look as ridiculous as they did. But well, what did it matter anyway. She would be doomed anyway when her parents would hear about this.

Carabel’s thoughts were interrupted by a sound of explosion that made the whole building to tremble.

“What was that?” Carabel shouted with her student commitee president voice that meant she was going to be the leader in this situation.

“Oh, it must be that damn lich…” Professor Butternut mumbled.

“What lich?” Carabel asked.

“Oh, did I say lich?” Professor Butternut said looking surprised. “I think you misheard me young lady. I’ll go to see what’s going on. You all should stay here and not to cause more disturbance there is already caused because of these strange incidents.”

Professor Butternut glanced sternly on students and was gone in one flash. Carabel sighed. She was not going to be just sitting around while something interesting was going on.

“I think we should group into teams and figure out what is going on.” Carabel said with her bossy voice to the other students. “There is no point sitting around. We should gather information and do our best to help and…”

“Ooooo, I know what’s going on!” Rudolphus interrupted Carabel. “I sent some… mmmm…. Spells to gather information and it seems that there was a huge explosion in the library!” He explained in excitement.”And that’s not all: quite a big amount of strong parchments fly away because of that explosion or by some other force that wanted to cause problems at Academy.”

“That’s very well…” Carabel started blushing annoyed of interruption but couldn’t really scold Rudolphus as he had provided them important information.

“I see, so there is some wild spells running around.” Said Nim thoughtfull and glanced other students meaningfully.

“As I said in my opinion we should split into groups and…” Carabel continued but was again interrupted by Rudolphus.

“I don’t know about you guys but I’m not going to sit around here and just wait. I’m going to find those parchments… or at least nine of them. You know what that means?” He said and vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Wait you all! I think we shouldn’t be running around…” Carabel started again just to notice that no one was listening and all students were disappearing around her. Finally there was just Carabel, Cornelius and Gislan.

“So what’s the plan boss?” Gislan asked mockingly glancing at Carabel.

Carabel glanced at her and then to Cornelius. These two were the ones she disliked the most. At first she had shared room with Gislan, who had every night been crying because of her homesickness. Luckily after becoming student committee president she had got her private room and Carabel had get rid of Gisland who had been tagging on her cabe since the first day. And Cornelius, he was just about looks. Carabel didn’t understand how he had even got into the Astral Academy as she wasn’ sure if Cornelius was able to do any single spell right.

However, it seemed that these two were the ones she was stuck with. If she wanted to be proper leader she should be patient with them.

“Well, like I said we should split into groups and organize search party to find hese missing parchments.” Carabel said staring the others sternly. “And remember we should be working as team so no stupid soloing and no stealing spells for your own benefit.”

“Geez Carabel, relax.” Cornelius said prushing his hair. “You are so uptight that it’s not a surprise that you haven’t found a boyfriend.”

“Excuse me…!” Carabel shouted annoyed.

“Well, you know boys like a bit more easy going girls than you…” Cornelius continued.

“That was not the point you dumbass!” Carabel shouted. “We are not talking here about some dating nonsense! Who has said that I want a boyfriend anyway!” Carabel’s cheeks were burning. She didn’t remember when she had last time felt so humiliated.

“Don’t worry about him. He just can’t undestand why all the girls in the Academy are avoiding him so he tries to find a fault in every girl he meets.” Gislan said with a matter-of-factly voice.

“Pfft, they are avoiding me just because I’m better looking than any one of them.” Cornelius said jokingly but Carabel was sure he was at least half serious with that statement.

“Anyways, any of this doesn’t matter. We should go to library to start our investigation.” Carabel said.

“That would be waste of time. I’m pretty sure they have locked up the library already to prevent students snooping around there.” Gislan pointed out.

“Eh, well, you are maybe right… so we should start with detection spells so that we can start gathering the lost parchements.” Carabel said trying to gather up her previous confidence. “As a student committee president I’m the leader of this group. No questions.” Carabel said and teleported herself outside the academy. She wasn't sure if she wanted the other two stay behind or if she just wanted to stop wasting time and start the search.


	2. Wherein journey begins and the first parchment is found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the photobucket crap. Can't avoid it.

For Carabel’s surprise the three of them had survived quite well of the magic beasts wandering around the beach. Her tracking spell seemed to work well and she was certain that they were getting closer to one of the parchments. The great amount of magical creatures attacking them and being oddly restless around the beach was also a sign of closeness of very strong magic. Magical beasts which in normal circumtances would be peacefull turned out agitated and aggressive when strong magic was close them as strong magic parchments caused odd side effects around them.

“I think there is something strange going on aside the magic of missing parchemts; I think there is way too many aggressive creatures down here. Some of these I have never even seen.” Gislan said.

“I guess you are right.” Carabel said hesitantly. “That coud have something to do with that lich Professor Butternut mentioned.”

“Yeah, lichs tend to attract strange magic creatures who are affected with lich’s bitter and twisted emotions.” Cornelius commented.

“Yes, I guess that could be it.” Carabel said thoughtfully. “We should be prepared to meet quite a strong creatures then. You never know how lich’s precence may affect on all the magic around here.”

“I’m tired. Could we have a break?” Gislan sighed and threw her staff on the ground and sat beside it.

“Gislan! You should never treat you staff like that!” Carabel was shocked by the ignorance of her fellow student.

“Geez Carabel, r-e-l-a-x.” Cornelius said and followed Gislan's example.

“You two! How can you behave like this!” Carabel shouted.

“Oh well, there she goes again.” Gislan said rolling her eyes. “Want some snacks?” Gislan offered a package of dried berries towards Cornelius.

“Thanks. What do you think about our current situation?” Cornelius asked from Gislan while he threw some berries into his mouth.

“Dunno, I just want to get home.” Gislan said glancing towards the sky.

Carabel had to use all her will power to prevent herself from screaming to her companions. Even if they had accepted her as the leader, they didn’t show any respect towards her. She had already, more than once, wished that she had started this journey alone like the rest of the students. Carabel sighed and glanced towads the cliffs. And there was something odd up there. It seemed like some kind of big lizard creature was sliding over the cliffs into some kind of cave. She felt strange nudge in her mind. Her tracking spell had reacted strogly to that strange thing.

“I think I found our parchment.” Carabel said without moving her eyes from the cave.

“Eh, what?” Cornelius said and rose up.

“I said: I found one of the parchments.” Carabel said and stared grimly at her companions.

“Isn’t that a good thing? Why are you mad at us?” Cornelius said confused.

Carabel ignored him and started to jogg towards the cave. It would demand some climbing still but at least she now knew exactly where to go. She didn’t care if others followed or not. This was her moment of glory and she was not going to let those two excuses of a wizard to spoil it.

* * *

 

The cave wasn’t really a natural cave. It looked more like something created on purpose. There was even some kind of stone bridge over the gulley beneath. Carabel couldn’t see the lizard thing but she could feel the sizzling of magic all around the area.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Cornelius whispered behind her. To Carabel's surprise both, Cornelius and Gislan, had followed her and even kept in her pace instead of leaving far behind. Maybe they weren’t in such a bad shape after all.

“This place feels so malevolent that I could almost touch the hatred around us.” Muttered Gislan. Carabel wasn’t sure what she meant. She herself could feel only the sizzling of the magic but Gislan looked terrified and had turned paler and paler as they came closer to the cave. “I think something really terrifying has happened here in the past.” Gislan continued looking around in terror.

“I dont understand what you are talking about.” Carabel said annoyed as she was feeling how Gislan’s terror was making herself frightened too. “We need now all our stregth so stop telling these absurd horror stories.”

“It’s not a horror story!” Gislan snapped and blushed. “I’m specialized in healing so lingering of death magic makes me feel weak and there is a strong precense of death hanging around here like a fogg.”

“You should listen to Gislan.” Cornelius said. “She is very sensitive with this kind of things and I have learned to trust her guts with this kind of stuff.”

Carabel glanced at two of them curiously. She had never realized that these two knew each other this well. But now when she thought about it she had seen them together more than any other students at the academy. Carabel moved her gaze back to the cave. She was feeling a bit hesitant but somehow she still thought that what Gislan said had to be utter nonsense. And somehow she was also annoyed that Gislan could have noticed something she hadn’t.

“Well, I think we shouldn't waste more time standing here. Follow me.” Carabel said and started to jogg towards the cave.

“Carabel wait! It’s not safe!” Gislan shouted after her but Carabel ignored her shouts and started to run faster.

“I’ll show you two who is the most skilled wizard around here.” Carabel thought and ran over the stone bridge. And the bridge collapsed behind her. Carabel could feel how the ground trembled under her.

Carabel glanced behind her and saw terrified Cornelus and Gislan on the other side of the collapsed bridge. She was alone now and Carabel had an ominous feeling that she had made terrible mistake. She heard a strong thumb behind her and when she turned around the lizard thing she had seen earlier was standing in front of her, except up close it looked more like a big mantis than a lizard.

“Carabel! Avoid its breath!” Gislan shouted jumping up and down on the otherside of the gulley.

“I should have listened Gislan.” Bitter tought popped into Carabel’s mind but she pushed it away. There was nothing she could do about that now.

She could smell the acid breath of the mantis in front of her. Carabel took tighter grip of her staff and went trought all the possible spells she could use in this situation.

“Carabel lookout! Above you!” Shout of Cornelius broke into her thoughts and she glanced up and blinked to the other side of the round entrance area of the cave. Mantis screamed in dissapointment as it’s acid bombs blashed on the empty ground.

Carabel stared at the mantis trying to find its weak point. She couldn't see any and more acid was coming down towards her. She blinked away again.

I have to think up something fast, Carabel thought as she could feel that her blinking energy was not recovered enoug for a next fast escape. She jumped up and blashed some ice on the mantis. However, it seemed to be totally useless move. And then there came fire. Carabel could feel her hair burning and her whole mind bursting with fear. But trought her fear Carabel could see how the mantis rose up to gather its powers and showed some unprotected belly beneath it. Carabel moved her staff fast and splashed some ice shards on the stomach of the mantis.

Mantis was screaming in terror and Carabel rolled away from the blazing flames. Suddenly she could feel a smoothing glimmering greenness around her.

“Carabel! Move! Don’t let your guard down!” Carabel heard Gislan’s voice somewhere far away but the soothing feeling of this green glimmer was too good to go away from.

“Carabel stop daydreaming!” Carabel heard Cornelius shouting and suddenly felt a bang in her head as a small wooden thing popped on her temple.

“Ouch! What was that for!” Carabel shouted just to realize the ominious smell of acid coming towards her. She blinked by instict and avoided the splashing acid just in time. She turned around and could now see what that shimmering greenness had been, Gislan’s big healing circle. Carabel wasn’t sure how it had ended up on this side of the gulley but she had no time to think as she had to blink away from another splash of the acid.

Next will come fire, Carabel thought and ran near another acid spash and waited. These magic monsters were so predictable. And the fire came and Carabel rolled away from it as it ignited the acid making the pool of acid dissapear into a smoke. And then Carabel splashed another splash of iceshards on the stomach of the mantis.

And now its just about repetition, Carabel thought. She was a bit ashamed of the simplicity and straightforwardness of her strategy. She had always wanted to be great tactician like her grandfather but sometimes simple strategies worked the best.

* * *

 

Carabel was breathing heavily as she lied on the ground but she had won. The mantis had collapsed and she had won. Her whole body was burning from exhaustion but she knew that she had no time for lying around so she pulled herself up and glanced around. She could feel the precense of the parchment. It was somewhere close. And then she saw it; it was entagled on the back on the mantis and now it was trying to break free and fly away to find another host for its magic.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Carabel muttered and threw a capturing spell on the scrabbling parchment. The parchment fought back but Carabel’s determination won it and slowly the parchment floated to the hands of Carabel. “I got it.” She breathed and turned towards Cornelius and Gisland wawing the parchement in her hands. “I got it!”

Cornelius and Gislan were jumping up and down looking as excited as Carabel felt. And for the first time she felt happy to have others with her. Others with whom she could share her feeling of victory.


	3. Wherein Carabel is gloomy and dreams about wizards of the past and young wizards learn that sand can burn

Night had fallen before they had got back to the beach. It had been quite and ordeal for three of them to get Carabel back on the other side of the gulley but finally they had succeeded. The joy of winning the mantis had been replaced with tiredness and exhaustion.

“Well, at least we are one parchement closer to rescuing all the missing parchements.” Cornelius said trying to sound optimistic but even his voice had a hint of tiredness on it.

Gislan had pulled herself into a small ball and was staring to the sky and Carabel was quite sure she wasn’t really present in her body.

“It seems this night is going to be quite cold.” Carabel sighed. Even if she was ice wizard she hated the creeping humid coldness of the beach.

“I think we need some fire.” Cornelius said and rose up.

Carabel nodded but didn’t look at him. She had felt so strong after winning the mantis but now she felt just very small and tired. She had read many stories of the adventures of the great wizards but none of those stories had contained any single word about tiredness or hesitation let alone the feeling of weakness in front of the big monster. Everyting had seemed to be so easy for those wizards of the past. And for the first time in her life Carabel had the unnerving feeling of uncertainty. Maybe she really wasn’t up to this task. Maybe Professor Butternut had been right on disqualifying her. Maybe she was the blacksheep of her family and because of that uncapable of controling the powers of the great ones.

“Cornelius! What have you done!” Gislan’s terrified shout broke into Carabel’s mind and she realized that the smell of burning she had half noticed but hadn’t paid any attention to was coming from the burning sand.

“Burning…. Sand?” Carabel thought staring the invasive flames scattered in front of her and surprised Cornelius on the other side of them. The smell of the failed spell was lingering around them so strongly that Carabel was wondering why she hadn’t noticed it earlier.

“I thought we needed some warm fire here!” Cornelius shouted with spreading terror on his face.

“You idiot! Why did you choose to burn sand!?” Gislan shouted wawing her hands around obviously trying to figure out how to make flames to dissapear.

“It seemed like a good idea! After all there isn’t too much other things to burn here!” Cornelius shouted and approached the flames still looking terrified. And the flames catched his coat.

Carabel sprinted towards the flames muttering the first spell that came to her mind and frozen stream of ice shards were shot all around the flames turning them into ice.

 

 

“Nice job Carabel but you were exaggerating a bit.” Cornelius said with a trembling voice trying to pull his coat hem out from the icesculpture that had captured him too as it had captured the flames.

“It will melt.” Gislan said with her matter-of-factly voice. “You should be thankful that the only thing you lost was the hem of your coat.”

Carabel stared her companions. Cornelius looked pale and humiliated and Gislan looked at him with her you-got-what-you-deserved look on her. And suddenly, to everyones surprise, Carabel bursted into laughter.

“Why are you laughting? This isn’t funny!” Cornelius said his cheeks burning red.

Carabel tried to answer but she couldn’t. It felt like all her exhaustion, tiredness and self-doubt had melted into this laughter. In the end what did it matter if she couldn’t ever become a great wizard? These two couldn’t either and they didn’t waste a single thought to those things.

“I think you infected her with some kind of laughting disease.” Gislan said calmly making Carabel laughting increase even more. Also Gislan started to giggle and was soon laughting louder that Carabel.

Cornelius stared at two of them more and more annoyed. He wasn’t used to being laugted at and he still couldn’t see anything funny in the situation.

“Stop laughting you two!” Cornelius snapped and glared Gislan and Carabel trying to silence them.

“Oh, Cornelius, for a once could you use that brain of yours. I’m quite sure you have one even if you make it hard to believe in that.” Carabel said smiling widely but she had finally got her laughter under control.

“I could have died you know.” Cornelius said annoyed.

“Oh, no you couldn’t have.” Carabel smirked. “Gislan here could have just healed you even if you have succeeded to burn youself to the scratch.”

“Hmmm, yeah. I could have definitely done that.” Gislan said with an over serius voice.

“Pffft, you are horrible. You hear me? Horrible!” Cornelius said but there was smile appearing on the corners of his mouth.

“But seriously speaking, you were right about one thing: we do need the fire.” Carabel said.

“See! See! What did I say!” Cornelius said wawing his hads towards Gislan. Gisland rolled her eyes to him but said nothing.

“Well, I think we should gather some wood. I have got enough of magic fire for the rest of my life or at least for the rest of this night.” Carabel said making Cornelius and Gislan to sigh.


	4. Wherein young wizards learn that trasportation circles can be dangerous

It felt like the beach was continuing forever on. Carabel tried to remember the maps at the library of Astral Academy. Had the beach really been this big or had they been walking in circles. However, Carabel was sure that her tracking spell was working and they were getting closer to the next parchment. Night had fallen again turning the tropical heat into humid coldness.

“What on earth is this place?” Cornelius said pointing out to small huts and other holiday resort like structures around them.

“I don’t know but I think we should be careful.” Carabel said glancing sharply around.

“Oh, I know this place!” Gislan gasped in surprise. “It’s that holiday resort that was advertised on Wizard Weekly last week!”

“Really?” Carabel was puzzled. “It looks pretty empty for being a popular holiday resort.”

“Dunno, but I’m sure this is the place I saw on those pictures.” Gislan said stubbornly.

They all fell into silence. If this really was a popular holiday resort something strange had happened here lately, Carabel thought. She put her tracking spell on hold for a while and turned her mind to life detection spell.

“I think there isn’t any other human like creatures here aside ourselves.” Carabel said after her spell had scanned the whole area.

“I got the same result.” Cornelius said looking puzzled.

“Maybe holiday season is just over.” Gislan shrugged. “No need to be over worried about that.”

“Gislan, do you sense anything around here? Any kind of traces of death?” Carabel asked.

“Nope. Nothing.” Gislan said and shrugged again.

“At least that’s good then.” Carabel said and sighed. “Well, we should go on. But be ready for anything there is definitely something odd going on here. Even if there is no other human like creatures around there is definitely tons of living creatures around.”

“Yes boss!” Gislan and Cornelius said in choir and Carabel glared them annoyed. But even thought her companions were annoying time to time Carabel had had to admit that they had been useful and that they were better wizards that she had originally thought. Cornelius actually could get spells to work if he wanted to. He just sometimes did things without thinking them. While Gislan was total opposite, she thought things over so long that sometimes she simply failed to cast a spell in time but when she did they were always perfectly crafter and balanced. Carabel had also came in conclusion that only reason they had joined in her team was that neither one of them wanted to take the leading position and rather followed some one elses lead. Reason for that was still unclear but Carabel had stopped worrying about that as in the end the only thing that mattered was that those two did their jobs and followed her orders — most of the time.

The holiday resort was really as abandoned as it had seemed. But instead of being just empty it was full of stragely active magical creatures attacking Carabel and her companions.

“I don’t get it.” Gislan muttered when there was a little break of attacking magic creatures. “Why are all these… these beasts or whatever they are wandering around in place like this?”

“Don’t know and to be honest I don’t care. We are getting closer to the next parchment and we can worry about this place and its oddity some other time.” Carabel said re-caliprating her tracking spell that had got messed up by all the magic that those magical creatures had thrown on them.

“Maybe you are right.” Gislan sighed looking around hesitantly. “But I really would like to know what has happened here.”

“Maybe the lich dropped around here too?” Cornelius said and yawned. “I’m tired could we have a break.”

“Break? In this kind of place?” Carabel said and shaked her head. “It’s way too dangerous here so we should continue until we get out from here.”

“Crap. Gislan, you are healer, do you have anything that could make me stay awake?” Cornelius said.

“Mmmm, maybe but you may not like it.” Gislan said and smirked at Cornelius.

“I don’t care, just make me stay awake.” Cornelius said annoyed.

“If you say so.” Gislan said and splashed a wawe of electricity on Cornelius.

“What on earth are you doing to me?!” Cornelius shouted and pushed Gislan on the side. “Are you crazy! I could have died.”

“No you couldn't have.” Gislan said calmly. “But you are awake now, arent you?”

“Yes, but.”

“Then you got exactly what you wanted so stop whining.”

Carabel stared her companions blankly and was yet again thinking that both of them had to be a bit nuts. But at least her tracking spell was back to order and she could sense the next parchment closer than before.

“Ok you two, if you are ready let’s go.” Carabel said and started to jogg to the direction where she assumed the next parchement was waiting for them. She didn’t look behind herself but Cornelius curses and Gislans humming followed her so there wasn’t really any reason to check if the others were following her lead.

* * *

 

They had arrived to the farthest corner of the holiday resort and there all the tracks just dissapeared. Carabel was sure that she had been following her tracking spell to the right direction but still it seemed that there was nothing here even if she could feel the faint precence of strong magic lingering around.

“Carabel, come here!” Cornelius shouted wawing his hands. “I found something interesting.”

Carabel blinked next to him and stared at softly shimmering circle in front of them. She could feel strong magic lingering on the circle and it was blinking faintly. Carabel checked her tracking spell and realized that the tracks hadn’t dissapeared but changed their form after entering to that circle.

“It’s trasportation circle.” Carabel said excited. “It will take us to the next parchment. Gislan come here quick!”

The three of them stepped into the circle at the same time and Carabel could feel the surge of magic absorbing her into stream of magic. And then, everything cleared; they were standing on a floating disk in the middle of air. Carabel glanced at her companions who seemed to be as surprised as she was and then she could hear sharp click and the disk moved shakingly downwards.

“What is this place?” Cornelius gasped next to her looking as worried as Carabel felt. They were standing in the middle of big pillar like circle that was surrounded with mirror like things that seemed to be some kind of magic portals. There was another sharp click and the portals rose sligthly upwards and started to circle around them.

“Oh shit, this is battle arena!” Gislan shouted and pulled her staff in front of her. “Prepare yourselves, there may come anything out of those portals and that anything wants to kill you!”

Carabel looked around trying to see the parchement. She was sure it was here but she couldn’t see it anywhere. And why on earth there was this kind of place in the middle of nowhere. There were too many illogical things surrounding Carabel and that made her more nervous than she could have ever imagined.

“Here it comes!” Gislan shouted and blinked to the other side of the arena as huge wild boar looking creature rushed out of the portal leaving fire traces behind it. Carabel had instictively blinked after Gislan and stared blankly to the magic creature she recognized as Hogg-Mar. Those things could appear in the form of any magical element so they should be prepared for anything.

Every five second new Hogg-Mar appeared from one of the portals and Carabel and the others were too busy in avoiding them that they hadn’t formed any kind of fighting strategy. Carabel felt like they were just running in circles instead of figting.

“Listen you two! We have to defeat them!” Carabel shouted at the same time as she tried to blash ice shards on another Hogg-Mar that had just appeared out of the portal. “Try to use the opposing elements! You do remember what that means?!”

Cornelius and Gislan didn’t seem to react on Carabels shouts but she could feel their magic starting to gather up in more organized way. And slowly they started to form a fighting team instead of unorganized group of apprentices bounching randomly around the arena.

* * *

 

“I think it’s over.” Carabel said breathing heavily. She wasn't sure for how long the battle had lasted but the portals had lost their glimmer so she assumed that it was finally over. And then she heard yet another sharp click. “Oh shit! Not again!”

The three young wizards turned towards the sound and were prepared for a new attack but instead of roaring Hogg-Mar they saw glimmering magic circle appearing beneath the disk that had brought them to the arena. Carabel stared at the circle excpecting something to fly out of it but after it had stabilized there was nothing but the transportation circle in front of them.

“I think that’s our only way out here. Even if I’m not sure if I want to know where that thing will take us.” Carabel muttered and glanced at the other too who looked as grim as she felt. “But I’m still wondering where that cursed parchement is? My tracking showed clearly that it should be here.”

“Well I think your spell was right.” Gislan said and stretched her arm so that she could catch something shimmering above the transportation circle. “Here.”

Carabel stared at the glimmering thing in Gislands hands as it slowly turned into the magic parchment they were searching for. Carabel reached her hand towards it but Gislan slapped her hand and the parchement dissapeared.

“What!? Why you…?” Carabel said surprised still staring the place were parchment had been.

“You already got one. I think it’s just fair that I’ll keep this one. Finders keepers, you know.” Gislan said and marched into the magic circle dissapearing into magic stream.

 

 

 

 


	5. Wherein past finds Carabel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me longer to publish this next part than I thought as it took me surprisingly long time to finish my sketch for this chapter but here it finally is.

To Carabel’s surprise they had transported to the edge of Tundra. Usually, when people thought about Tundra, they thought about the frozen fields and icy winds but in reality the borders of the Tundra were not covered by snow and ice but fall colors and fluttering leaves that had never been green or fresh. Borderlines of Tundra existed in space called as eternal autumn. Carabel had been there many times with her family as part of the traditions of ice wizard tribes was to travel to Tundra to stregten their connection to their main element.

“Oh, it’s so pretty here!” Gislan gasped looking around in awe.

“Yeah, well this place is always like this so we should go on with our task.” Carabel shrugged and started to re-direct her tracking spell. “I think I have found it. Come on! No time for sightseeing.”

Gislan and Cornelius looked at each other and sighed. They were used to Carabel and her unconditional devotation on finding the lost parchements. But sometimes they wished that their leader would be a bit more relaxed so that they could enjoy the journey. After all, there was no guarantee they could leave Astral Academy in any near future so this could be their only chance to see places outside the stone walls of it.

Carabel was almost enjoying the walk trought the autumnal borderlands, almost. Unlike she had expected way to the Tundra was not peacefull, calming journey trought the autumn leaves and waterfalls; the whole path was swarming with hostile magical creatures which seemed to get even more agitated when Carabel and the others approached them.

“I hate these things!” Carabel screamed as she blashed more ice on fire elemental creatures and blinked away from the explosion of another self-destructive beetle-like thing that had been running after her. She could feel how the strong magic interfered with her tracking spell and turned it into magical bunddle of messy strings. Carabel cursed, she wasn’t sure if she had enough energy to yet again calibrate her spell. It felt like these creatures were messing up with her tracking spell on purpose. But why would they? They couldn’t gain anything from preventing them to find the missing parchements. Carabel was trying to clear her thoughts, maybe she had read too many mystery books lately and was just imagining things, but still, there was certainly something odd going on. Carabel was certain of that.

“Ouch, I guess that was the last one!” Cornelius said looking a bit pale. It seemed that he had got severe damage on him and Gislan had to use all her spell powers to heal him.

“I think we need a break!” Gislan shouted to Carabel who had lost into her thoughts after recent battle.

“Mmmm, yes that could be a good idea but I’m not sure if there is any safe place for us to stop.” Carabel said and walked next to the others.

“It doesn’t matter. We can’t go on like this.” Gislan said gloomily. “We just have to take break. Was it safe or not.”

Carabel nodded and glanced at Cornelius who looked still a little pale. She knew that Gislan was right. They all had used way too much of their energy, magical and physical. Besides, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to fix the tracking spell with the powers she had now. Carabel stared at the glacier further away and was feeling that this was yet another failure on her path of becoming great wizard. She could smell that Gislan and Cornelius had made a fire and were cooking something but Carabel wanted to be alone for a while. She had tried her best at the Academy and now during the journey but it seemed that her best was not enough. She had always wanted to see herself as invincible like that lonely glacier in distant. Somehow it had felt like her destiny and that had separated her from the rest of the students. But then, she had failed. She had been disqualified. She hadn’t become an aknowledged wizard and even if she wanted to think that she was the leader of the rescue team she knew, deep inside, that she was just a run-away student who was unable to face her parents let alone the rest of her mighty family.

“Carabel food is ready! Stop moping and come here with us!” Gislan shouted and Carabel couldn’t prevent herself from smiling. Those two were hopeless. And maybe that’s why I’m here now with them because I’m hopeless too, Carabel thought and walked back to the others.

* * *

 

Coldness of the glacier was creeping in even if snowing had ended. Carabel knew that she would be ok but she was worried about others. Unlike her they were not used to this kind of coldness. They had never been thrown alone and half naked into frozen room to strenghten their will. Carabel shivered and quickly pushed old memories back deep into her mind and maybe some day she would forget those things and forgive her grandfather.

“How are you two doing?” Carabel shouted to the others who were leaving behind.

“We are just fiiine!” Cornelius shouted back sounding nothing like fine.

“Don’t push it. This glacier may kill you.” Carabel said even if she knew the others wouldn’t hear her from this distance. Carabel glanced towards the top of the glacier and then back to her friends. “They may not make it up there. Maybe I should have left them to wait at the borderlands.”

Carabel jogged to Cornelius and Gislan who looked tired and were shivering in cold wind.

“I think we need to re-plan this. Maybe you should build a camp here and keep yourselves warm while I climp up to pick the next parchment.” Carabel said with a bit more commanding voice than she had planned.

“No. We will come with you.” Gislan said stubbornly. “There might be another guardian beast for this parchment.”

“Guardian beast? What are you talking about?” Carabel said confused.

“I have been thinking and I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that everytime we find a parchement we have to defeat some kind of strong magical creature.” Gislan said. “So, when you reach the top there will be fight and we can’t leave you to face it alone.”

“But you too are freezing!” Carabel pointed out.

“Yes we are but we are stronger than you think.” Cornelius said. “Besides, magical creature that lives in this kind of place have to be at least partly immune to ice magic so you will need us to bring more elements to fight.”

“I can do other that ice spells too!” Carabel snapped and blushed.

“Yeah, yeah, but you can’t deny that those other spells aren’t your strongest so want you it or not we are coming with you.” Cornelius said and walked past Carabel towards the top of the glacier.

Gislan glanced at Carabel as she passed her and followed Cornelius. Carabel sighed, she didn’t like this but it seemed that she couldn’t do anything for the situation so it would be better just continue upwards. And in the end she also had to admit that Gislan and Cornelius were right.

* * *

 

The top of the glacier was surprisingly flat. It looked like some kind of platform and that made Carabel worried. She felt the strong precence of the next parchment but couldn’t point out where it exactly was hiding. Suddenly, a loud cry pierched her mind and Carabel instictively turned towards the sky just to see huge ice falcon to smash itself in the middle of the platform and with one wave of a wig created icy walls everywhere separating Carabel from the others. Frozen walls, frozen room, it was so cold so cold and Carabel had banged the door and shouted for her parents for help without answer.

“Go away, GO AWAY!” Carabel screamed holding her head between her hands. “Just leave me be!”

 

And then Carabel felt icy pierching pain on her left arm. She stared stunned at the frozen arrow that had pierched her arm. The walls around her dissapeared and she heard that some one was shouting at her nearby but Carabel just stared at the arrow. Then she felt a sudden push and she fell on the snow and then some one pulled here up.

“Carabel get yourself together!” Gislan shouted at her and slapped her face with a healing spell. It felt odd, Carabel thought, how something could at the same time hurt and heal you.

Gislan pushed Carabel again just in time to avoid another falling arrow. And then the snow walls rose again but now Carabel was not alone.

“I can’t do this, I want out.” Carabel mumbled and clinged on Gislan. “I can’t be in this room. I don’t need to become great wizard, just let me out, please…”

“Carabel, wake up! We are not in a room!” Gislan shouted and shaked Carabel gently. “I don’t know what you are talking about but you are not there anymore! You are not in that frozen room and we need you!”

It felt like something in Carabel’s mind clicked and her vision sharpened. She could see Gislan’s worried face in front of her and the icy walls around them. She heard angry cries of the ice falcon and heard the splashing sounds of Cornelius’ spells as they hit something accompanied with his curses. Everything was clear now, Carabel thought, she had survived in the past and would survive from this thing whatever it would bring to her. And then, yet again, icy walls vanished and Carabel could see Cornelius fighting with the ice falcon on the otherside of the platform.

“Cornelius! I’m coming just keep it up until I get there!” Carabel shouted and blinked next to Cornelius. Gislan stared after her and shaked her head and sprinted after Carabel to help Cornelius.

* * *

 

The fight was finally over, they had won but Carabel felt empty inside. She had let her guard down and her past to took her over. She had left her companions into danger and without Gislan she may have died without realizing it herself.

“Carabel, I don’t know what has happened to you but you know you are not alone anymore.” Gislan said and patted Carabel’s shoulder.

“You can’t understand. No one ever will.” Carabel muttered.

“If you mean that I can’t understand the burden of being descendant of wizard family, you are wrong.” Gislan said sounding tired. “When I was young my grandmother made me eat different poisonous plants and then to try heal myself with my magic. The thing they never tell you on the books about great wizards is that those great wizards were lunatics who tormented their own family.”

“That’s not true! My grandfather was not lunatic!” Carabel shouted angrily.

“Oh, then why are you so scared of frozen rooms that it makes you gibbering little kid.” Gislan smirked. “Look, the thing is that great wizards were great because they never cared about feelings they were ruthless and more than a little mad and that’s what made them powerfull and dangerous.”

Carabel was still angry but she couldn’t deny Gislan’s words. Gislan’s words had been way too closew description of Carabel’s grandfather.

“Sometimes your family is your worst enemy.” Said Cornelius softly behind her. “When I was seven I was thrown into battle arena to fight horribly angry monsters so that I would have learnt swordsmanship. In the end I never learnt much about swords and started to study magic instead. My family never liked that as we are a noble family with great heritage and magic wasn’t ever really respected in our family. But now, when I’m on my way of becoming wizard, my parents expect me to become a great archwizard and for them failing is not an option.”

“Well that explains, why you are so bad in magic.” Gislan gigled and Cornelius glared at her.

“So like Gislan said: you are not alone Carabel.” Cornelius continued. “We all have had to deal with the expectations of our great families and each of us has felt the burden of our heritage. You just never seemed to notice anyone else than yourself.”

Carabel was quiet. In some way she was relieved as maybe these two really could understand her but at the same time she was ashamed. She had never paid atention to the other student’s backgrounds. She had always thought that she was the only descendant of great wizards. And even if some students, like Cornelius, were not from wizard families they had their own burdens to carry, like Cornelius with his noble family name that made him aristocrat. And then she felt it: the next parchement. She glanced towards the center were the crown of the ice falcon was lying. She blinked next to it and took it in her hands so that she could see it better. As Carabel was turning the crown in her hands it started to change and soon it wasn’t anymore crown but the third parchment they had been searching for.


	6. Wherein the spell of righteousness is broken

They had reached the frozen sea, which wasn’t really frozen as it was too close to the borderlands but was called that way anyway, and crossed it. They had even found hidden glacial den but to Carabel's dissapointment the next parchement was not hidden there even if there had been a group of strong magical creatures.

“It feels like some one is toying with us.” Cornelius said as they had left the den empty handed.

“Maybe, I have thought there being something strange going on all the time during our journey.” Carabel said and tried to concentrate on re-caliprating her tracking spell that had been mudded yet again with the strong magic of the creatures of the den.

“If there really is lich involved in all of this, we can expect pretty much anything.” Gislan commented.

“Yes, you may be right. But I can’t understand why some lich would be destroying the library of Astral Academy and then rising a hordes of magical creatures to attack on anyone who tried to find parchments.”

“I’m not sure if liches are sensible creatures.” Cornelius muttered.

“You are wrong. They are dark creatures but they are very sensible and intelligent. After all, they are great wizards turned into magical creatures after their death.” Carabel said still working on her spell. “They usually have a strong grudge against some one or something and that grudge keeps them living even after their death.”

“You are only partly right.” Gislan said with her lecturing voice. “Liches are powerfull magician specialized in necromancy who have trapped their intellect, or soul if you want to call it that, into somekind of phylactery to gain immortality. It is true, however, that usually liches tend to be bitter creatures but it’s more like a side effect of their necromacy turning awry than their own doing.”

“Oh thanks smartass, that was exactly what I wanted to hear.” Cornelius said wryly. “So we are trying to fight agaist scheming undead great magician who have gathered tons of magical creatres all around the Astral Academy and enslaved them under its control and is probably now laughting its ass of as it’s observing our journey and misery trought its magic ball and eating pop corns.”

“Exactly, except that I doubt that it’s eating pop corns. Undeads can’t really digest any kind of food.” Gislan said thoughtfully.

“Ok you two, stop fighting. I think I have got my spell re-caliprated so we should continue our journey.” Carabel said and looked at the others amused. “In the end, our goal is to find the missing parchments. We can just forget that damn lich.”

* * *

 

“I think the next parchment is in that grove.” Carabel said.

They had been travelling for days and passed blooming gardens and just passed ancient ruins. For a moment she had thought that something had happened there recently but with a closer observation it turned out that the ruins had been there for decades maybe even hundred of years.

“But that’s a silk worm grove.” Gislan said sounding surprised. “That doesn’t fit into the pattern.”

“Why is that?” Carabel asked confused.

“The previous parchments were guarded by magical monsters but the silk worm grove is magical place in itself and it always has magical guardian that is called Silk Tree Guardian. And those things are not evil.” Gislan explained. “So there is simply no way we would end up into fight.”

“Are you sure? Guardian of any kind is very capable to fight.” Cornelius commented.

“Hmph, you obviously know nothing about silk worm groves.” Gislan answered annoyed. “The Guardians are very intelligent beings so we just need to explain them why we are here and everything should go smoothly.”

“Souds good to me.” Said Cornelius gleefully.

“It’s still odd. It doesn’t follow the pattern.” Gislan muttered.

Carabel had quietly listened to her companions. She had learnt that sometimes listening to your companions was more important than leading the way. Carabel had learnt that hard way at the mantis cave. She also felt that during their journey she had became better leader and maybe some day Gislan and Cornelius would see her as the proper leader of the group, not only as some one who had picked the task but who deserved it and who was worth following.

“Well, I think it’s better to be carefull anyway because as Gislan said this doesn’t follow the pattern.” Carabel said and started to walk towards the grove.

Everythig looked calm and somehow magical. Night had fallen a moment ago but it wasn’t dark as the silk worm cocoons were oddly shimmering around them and everything was covered by magical light which seemed not to have any visible source. In any other situation Carabel would have wanted to spend more time there observing the oddity and the beauty of the grove.

And then, the path ended. They had arrived to the heart of the grove which seemed more like a ruins of human buildings than something created by nature. Actually, this place seemed to be part of the ruins they had just passed, Carabel thought. She could feel the precence of the next parchment but yet again couldn’t point out where it exactly was hiding.

“Carabel, look out!” Shouted Gislan behind her.

Carabel instictively blinked away and as she turned around she could see mantis like Silk Tree Guardian surrounded by smaller guards. The spot where she had previously stood was covered with the circle of death.

“I thought you said that it’s peacefull and intelligent!” Carabel shouted at Gislan who was on the otherside of the grove.

“It should be!” Gislan shouted back sounding desperate. “These creatures should never attack anyone without questioning!”

Carabel nodded. She believed what Gislan said but the way things were now they couldn’t avoid the fight. Carabel prepared her spells and attacked. Cornelius joined her but Gislan was still standing aside wringgling her hands. Carabel combined her ice beam with Cournelius’ electricity beam and with their combined powers they succeeded to knock down some of the guardians but they had to move fast as the Silk Tree Guardian itself was very powerfull mage. Carabel blinked behind the Guardian preparing her next attack put was pushed down by Gislan.

“No! We can’t hurt it! It’s just doing it’s job!” Gislan sounded desperate. “I don’t know what’s wrong but we can’t hurt it!”

Carabel jumped up and knocked Gislan to head. Sorry Gislan but you are on the way, she thought and attacked against the Guardian. Carabel had to lead the enemies away from Gislan as they didn’t have time to protect her unconscious body.

* * *

 

Carabel and Cornelius succeeded to defeat the Silk Tree Guardian but neither felt any joy after the victory. Gislan was crying and cursing them and they couldn’t really blame her. Carabel had found the next parchment attached on the back of The Guardian. They were again one parchment closer to their goal.

“Gislan, there was no other option than to fight.” Carabel said patting Gislan's shoulder.

“Yes there was!” Gislan snapped. “We could have tried to heal it.”

“Heal?” Carabel said puzzled.

“There was something wrong with The Guardian. “ Gislan whispered. “There was maddness in its eyes and I could feel the lingering of death everywhere. Something or some one has contaminated this place.”

Carabel was silent. She knew that Gislan was more sensitive to these kind of things than Carabel or Cornelius. But at the same time she couldn’t agree with her. Carabel had seen the maddness in the eyes of the Silk Tree Guardian and she knew that kind of maddness was not curable. Something in that creature’s soul had been crushed and destroyed. Carabel had seen that kind of eyes before and she had learnt that when the last shimmering glimpse of counsciousness was covered with maddness it was not anymore curable. She wished it would be otherwise but that was the price of getting too deep into necromancy and losing control of the powers you had been yearning. That had been the end of her grandfather and that had been the end of the Silk Tree Guardian. Only that in this case the maddness had been inflicted by the outsider not the creature itself.

“We will find that lich and defeat it.” Carabel said. “Then this kind of things will never happen again.”

“I doubt that. There will always be some one who will do something like this.” Gislan muttered. “But maybe we can at least end the maddness caused by this lich. And maybe in some way that will make this world a little bit better place.”

“I’m sure of that.” Carabel said and took Gislan’s hand. “Come on, we should go now. Cornelius is waiting. He didn’t know how to deal with you so he kind of escaped outside.”

“Sounds like him.” Gislan said and smiled weakly.


	7. Wherein Carabel tries to keep the group together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to self: never start to publish fic near december. Anycase after the end of the year and start of the year hassle it's time to wrap up this story. 
> 
> If you read this a lot after publication: the last three chapters were published at the same time that's why this is the wrap up summary :)

They had passed hotsprings and gardens. It felt like they had arrived trought autumn and winter to spring and early summer. After what had happened at the silkworm tree grove, Gislan had been oddly quiet. Carabel had thought that Gislan’s mood would get better as they got further away from the grove but she had been wrong. It seemed that Gislan’s mood had became worse. But the worst thing was that Gislan and Cornelius weren't anymore in speaking terms. Carabel wasn’t sure what had happened but it seemed that they had been fighting while Carabel had been scouting ahead alone and now they didn’t even look at each other. It seemed that the vague bond that had started to form between their reascue team had vanished and to Carabel’s surprise that hurt her more than being disqualified to be a wizard.

“I have got enough of this.” Carabel said turned towards the others and stopped. Gislan and Cornelius looked surprised and for the first time for a long time glanced at each other.

“Carabel, what’s going on?” Cornelius said slowly.

“I can’t stand it.” Carabel said and stared sternly at both Gislan and Cornelius. “In some strange way I thought that we were becoming some kind of friends and now you two are just moping and giving each other chilly glares. And I don’t even know what’s going on and I should be the leader of this group.”

Gislan and Cornelius stared Carabel stunned. And then they both started to laught.

“Sorry Carabel, we have been acting like immature kids.” Cornelius said still laughting but then turned serious. “The problem is that me and Gislan just disagree strongly about what happened at the silkworm tree grove.”

“I thought so.” Carabel said wryly. “That’s not the point but that you two are closing me outside again.”

“I’m sorry Carabel. We just thought that finding the next parchment was more important to you.” Said Gislan softly.

“Well you were wrong.” Carabel snapped but her eyes were smiling. “The most important thing for the leader is that her subordinates are ready to fight and work together. We are team, remember?”

“Geez, I thought that you had already got over that high and mighty student committee president phase.” Cornelius said but looked a bit amused.

“So, you two disagree with what happened at the silkworm grove, but that just shows that we are cabable of thinking on our own unlike that Silk Tree Guardian who had been cursed by the lich.” Carabel said. “And instead of just moping over what happened we should concentrate on why that happened. That happened because we wanted to find parchment that had been trapped on the Silk Tree Guardian and that parchment was there because of the lich which had been spreading its magic and darkness all around and based on our current knowledge that won’t end until we gather the parchments and find that lich.”

Carabel had expected that Gislan and Cornelius would start to argue with her or at east tell her stop the lecture but instead they were both in silence and stared her.

“Well, that was unexpected reaction.” Carabel said and rose her eyebrow. “Anyway, stop moping. We should continue.”

Carabel turned around on her heels and marched towards the next garden that was looming after some rocky roads and smokes that rose from hot springs below. On any other time Carabel would have thought that this place was the most beautiful place she had ever seen but now it just felt too hot and humid and made her sweaty. I so wish I could find a cold shower, Carabel thought, and I wish that this damn journey would come to end and everything would go back to normal, whatever normal meant.

* * *

 

Carabel stared at the reef in distance. She could feel strong nudge on her tracking spell telling her that the next parchement was close. They were standing in some kind of garden with its bridges and observation platforms. They had passed many of these and Carabel had wondered were those gardens always this isolated or were they like this because of unusual amount of the hostile magical creatures wandering around the gardens. She sighed and glanced at Cornelius and Gislan. They still didn’t seem to be on their best terms but at least the ice had melt. Carabel turned back towards the reef wondering if there was any way to prepare for the incoming fight as fight there would be, that she was sure of.

“Well, there is no point in waiting any longer. Just be prepared to anything.” Carabel said and marched forward.

When they arrived at the centre of the broken reef she could feel the precence of the next parchemnt stronger than ever. She took better grasp on her staff and in her mind let go of the tracking spell preparing some fighting spells. And then the splash of water rose in front of them and huge serpent like magic creature appeared from the bright waters its flamelike scales glimmering in the sun.

“It’s Uktena! Or something like Uktena!” Gislan screamed in horror. “Don’t look it into eyes or you will lose yourself! Avoid its breath it’s like condensated death!”

And just then the serpent breathed smoke that even Carabel could feel to be the strongest death spell she had ever seen. The breath came towards them like a wall of smoke but for their luck the reef was full of water pillars that Carabel and others could use as their shelter. Concentrate Carabel, concentrate, Carabel told to herself and smashed shards of ice on the serpent. It felt like nothing happened.

 

“Target on the seventh spot from the head!” Gislan shouted. “If it’s Uktena that’s the only weak spot it has.”

Carabel moved around the water pillar as the new breath attack was coming from opposite direction. The serpent was fast and it made targeting difficult. Carabel prepared more spells and picked up ice beam istead of the shards as it was easier to target. At the same time she wished that she had paid more attention on magical creature lectures as, unlike Gislan, she didn’t remember anything about these creatures.

The fight seemed to continue forever and felt like dance where they were circling around the reef from water pillar to another and the serpent was appearing and dissapearing in rhytmical phase that at first felt random. Carabel had teamed up with Cornelius as their spells worked better together and time to time Gislan joined their beams but most of the time concentrated on protection and healing. And then, it suddenly just ended. The serpent fell down in front of them and the shimmering transparent stone on its forehead rolled in the middle of the reef. Carabel stared at it as it slowly turned into next parchement.

“Well that’s odd.” Gislan said. “I didn’t expect that stone to dissapear.”

“Why not? Based on our previous experience that seems to be what always happens.” Said Carabel tired and observed Cornelius who had picked up the parchment. For a moment she wanted to snatch the parchement to herself but then decided to let it be.

“The stone itself should have been the treasure.” Gislan said in her lecturing tone. “It’s said that the stone from the forehead of Uktena provides its owner ability to tell future.”

Gislan turned towards the corpse of the serpent looking sad. Carabel followed her gaze and could guess what had made Gislan feel the sadness of the situation.

“It’s so beautiful. And we killed it.” Gislan whispered.

“Yes, but that’s how this thing goes. Kill or be killed.” Carabel said flatly.

“But in someway, it just feels wrong.” Gisland said and looked at Carabel.

“That’s the healer in you speaking. You are more used to bring life that to take it.” Carabel said shaking her head. “But it seems that in this world we just end up killing more than healing.”

Cornelius had came back to others and Carabel felt that he was annoyed of Gislan’s yearnig. Cornelius had always been the more practical one of these two. Even if it was hard to belief from the way he dressed up. Carabel sighed again and wished that Cornelius would understand to stay silent. They didn’t need any more fights.

 


	8. Wherein the ninth parchment is found

The beautiful gardens had turned into swamps and then mines and time to time even icy mountains. Carabel had lost track of time as they hadn’t been stopping for nights but time to time continued during nights too and had breaks during days. Measuring of time had became irrelevant to them but sometimes Carabel felt strange not to know how long their journey had lasted. She was also wondering why they hadn’t met any of the other students during their journey. But someway that was also logical: there had been a lot more parchements flying around than what they had detected and maybe the other students had just gone elsewhere. And there was also a possibility that they avoided Carabel. Even if she had always avoided the thought she knew that she had never been very popular student and after she had became Student Committee president, she had became even less popular than before. Carabel glanced at her companions. She had no idea why these two had decided to join her group but she also knew that no one else hadn’t which in itself was a sign that they preferred not to spend time with her.

“What are you thinking?” Cornelius asked as his eyes met Carabel’s.

“Nothing really.” Carabel said and turned away.

“Your eyes revealed that it was not nothing but something important. Just say it.”

“Well, I was just wondering why you two decided to team up with me.” Carabel said after short hesitation and turned back at Cornelius and Gislan.

“Because you were always alone.” Cornelius said.

“We have been observing you for long and as you can’t be avoided at the Academy because of your status it was also easy to see how lonely and lost you were.” Gislan added softly as if trying to soften down Cornelius’s rather blunt comment.

Carabel froze. It felt like some one had poured cold water on her. She had somehow always thought that they had followed her because they needed leader. She had never thought that they could have done that to help her. Carabel had always thought that she had appeared as strong figure, some one to respect. It had never occured to her that others could see her as weak.

“Carabel, we didn’t mean to insult you.” Gislan said as if she had read Carabel’s mind. “You are strong wizard and strong personality and some people even call you a bully but it has always seemed to us two that there is some kind of wound in you. Something that made you scream in your sleep.”

“Scream… in my… sleep?” Carabel repeated blankly.

“You do remember we used to share room.” Gislan pointed out. “I had to wake up more than ones because of your screams. You never remembered it on morning as if you tried to hide those things even from yourself but I do remember those moments when you were shaking on my arms as I tried to calm you down after some dream that was hunting you.”

Carabel stared Gislan in atonishment. She truly didn’t remember anything like that. She remembered only Gislan whining and crying. And then, as if door she had tightly shut in her mind had opened, she saw it. She was trembling on her knees on the floor and Gislan was hugging her. Gislan whispered calming words to her and gave her some medicine and after that she could fall a sleep again. Carabel felt humiliated, she could see it happening in her mind, many times in different nights with different nightmares but Gislan had always been there to support her. She had just blocked it all out as she had to be strong and invincible, Carabel had forced those memories of her weak moments to the closed corner in her mind and decided to forget.

“You remember it now.” Gislan said more like to just state the fact and not to question. Carabel assumed she had seen something on her face. Carabel turned around an walked away. She didn’t want to talk about this. She wished that she could forget everything again. There was no time for being weak.

* * *

 

They had passed more mines and arrived to strange ladder like corridor. Carabel sensed that the next parchement was close but she could also sense that there was something else strongly magical here.

“Look! Those tiles are flying!” Gasped Gislan atonished.

Carabel looked around and saw the floating tiles that had surprised Gislan. That’s odd, Carabel thought observing her surroundings more carefully than before. She felt that there was something strange going on with the gravity system of this place.

“The next parchment is very close now. We should be careful.” Carabel said to others.

Gislan and Cornelius looked at her worried. They haven’t been properly talking since Carabel had learnt their reason to follow her. Carabel tried to ignore their worried looks. At this moment she didn’t want to talk about those things. They had hit her pride quite strongly and at the same time opened some old wounds she had tried to forget.

Suddenly, the ladder like stairs ended. There was just strange rectangular platform floating in front of them or at least it didn’t seem to have any visible support structure. Carabel let go of her tracking spells and prepared for the fight as the signs were way too similar to their previous encounters with the magical creatures guarding the parchments. And then bluish flying chimera appeared from under the platform and shot down the bridge that they had just crossed. It started to feel a lot like trap, Carabel thought.

The burst of flames broke of Carabel’s thought and she succeeded to blink away just in time. She could smell something burning but didn’t have time to check out what it was as Chimera was attacking again and this time it had dropped one of the floor tiles of the platform. She tried to shot the Chimera wirh her iceshards but it vanished before she had got the targeting on point.

“Carabel, we should join our stregths so use your ice beam!” Cornelius shouted and blinked next to Carabel. Carabel nodded adjusted her spell, retargeted and shot her icebeam towars the chimera. Cornelius joined her with the electricity beam and suddenly Gislan was beside them and combined her death beam with their spells.

But then, more floor tiles were dropping and more chimeras were popping out from the holes throwing fire on them. Carabel blinked away but she could feel burning on her left arm and without thinking she froze her arm, jumped in the air and blasted ice cloud on the chimeras. Her left arm felt numb but it was already melting and she had got used to this feeling during her practice with her older brother whose magic teaching was sometimes more about pain than gain. Most of the chimeras disappeared. So they are just mirror images, Carabel thought and blasted more ice on the chimeras that were still floating in front of her. She had lost sight of Cornelius and Gislan but she assumed them to be preparing their spells on their own sides. More and more floor tiles were dropping out and more and more chimeras were appearing. It started to look like a sea of raging chimeras was floating in front of her and then there came the sea of flame which was a bit bigger everytime as they didn’t succeed to drop down all the mirror images.

And then, it suddenly ended. Carabel stared blankly how floating tiles fell down and floor tiles reappeared as if they had never been gone. She could see Cornelius and Gislan on the different sides of the platform but she couldn’t feel any joy. In the middle of the platform wiggling parchment appeared and Carabel called it to her with a simple catch spell. She stared at the parchment and felt nothing. They had now found nine parchments and even if they were divided between them meaning that none of them actually had nine she knew that if they wanted they could bind all of these spells to each of their spellbooks and complete their degree with that. The only thing they still needed to do was to return to the Academy and use the spell of sealing to permanently seal these spells to their spell books.

“So, I guess the journey is finally over.” Cornelius said next to her staring the parchment in her hands. Carabel nodded without looking at Cornelius.

“Hey, there is another transportation circle!” Gislan shouted to them.

“Oh, I’m not sure if I’m happy about that or not.” Cornelius commented and jogged mext to Gislan. “Our luck with these things haven’t been too good.”

Carabel sighed and walked to the others and then to the transportation circle letting herself to merge into the flow of transportation magic. Cornelius and Gislan stared after vanishing Carabel and neither one of them seemed too confident.

“Do you think she will be alright?” Gislan said staring the empty spot where Carabel had stood a moment ago.

“Of course she will. After all, she is the strongest one of us but because of that she is also the most wounded one.” Cornelius shrugged.

Gislan glanced at Cornelius and then followed Carabel to the transportation circle and vanished. After being left alone Cornelius slumped his shoulders and stared annoyed at the transportation circle. He knew that in some way because of his background he was less wizard than Carabel and Gislan but at the same time it felt like he could see things more clearly because he didn’t have the burden of expectations of great wizard anchestors.

“As if that would make a burden of the noble family to be less of a burden.” Cornelius mumbbled and stepped into transportation circle.


	9. Wherein Carabel has to face herself

Carabel stared at the Astral Academy. It looked different and Carabel had an unnerving feeling that change in atmosphere was not for better. There was way too much uncontrolled wild magic ticling around. Even if they weren’t reached the gates of Academy yet she could feel huge magical presence.

“Do you think it is that lich?” Asked Cornelius looking surprisingly calm.

“Maybe, I have never felt anything like this.” Carabel muttered.

“There is no point standig here.” Cornelius said. “We should keep going but we should also be prepared.”

Carabel nodded and started to jogg towards the gates. Air felt thick and it was difficult to breath. For most of the people, even for wizards, atmosphere around the Academy would feel puzzling and unfathomable, but not for Carabel. She had seen these symptoms once before. She had felt this nauseous magic around her when she and her father had broken into her grandfather’s study after he had got involved too deeply with necromancy and gone mad. Old memories tried to get free from the locked up corner in her mind but she threw them away without hesitation. There simply was no time for that. She could hear heavy breathing of Cornelius and Gislan behind her. Especially Gislan seemed to have trouble breathing the air full of lingering deathmagic and not just ordinary deathmagic but necromancy the darkest and the most forbidden form of magic on earth.

“What… is… this…” Gislan said with rasp and broken voice. Carabel stopped and turned around. Gislan looked really sickly.

“It’s the aftertaste of strong necromancy magic that has been used here.” Carabel answered coldly. “That lich is very close by now.”

“Ah, so that’s it.” Gislan said still sounding out of breath. “I never thought I would get this close something so sickening as this…” She wawed her hand around as if not sure how to describe the lingering thick air around them. “But if this really is aftereffect of necromancy I can understand why it is forbidden.”

“Will you be ok?” Carabel asked trying to sound soft but her inner struggle made her voice sound harsher than she intended.

“I guess so. Now when I know what it is I just need to get some medicine from my bag.” Gislan said. “So can we stop for the moment it will take some time for me to get this thing ready.”

Carabel nodded. She didn’t want to stop but she was sure that they would need all their combined powers to beat the lich lurking somewhere in the academy. Besides, for some reason the magic creatures she could sense inside the Academy, weren’t near the gate, so, it should be safe for now. Cornelius hadn’t said anything but he was better dealing with the deathmagic than either Carabel or Gislan so maybe the lingering traces of necromancy didn’t have too much effect on him. Carabel turned to look at the Academy again and by instict rose her gaze towards the highest tower of the Academy. There se could see flashes of magic going around tower, inside and outside. That tower was the place where they could seal their found parchements into their spellbooks but at this moment Carabel wasn’t anymore sure if that was what she wanted anymore.

“I’m ready. Let’s go.” Said Gislan behind Carabel sounding determined.

Carabel didn’t turn around. She knew Gislan and Cornelius would follow her to the end. During their journey they had formed bond between them and that bond was more valuabe than all the nine parchements together.

* * *

 

The whole Academy was in ruin. If the walls were not crubling they were burning if they were not burning they were painted with crazy graffitis. But it was also way too empty. There was no staff members nor wandering students the only other student they encountered was Nim who was cleaning the walls. Cornelius tried to ask him what had happened but Nim just shrugged his shouder looking tired. He didn’t want to talk with them and in the end Carabel, Gislan and Cornelius ended up continuing on their own.

Halls were swarming with macigal creatures who seemed to be more insane than the ones outside. Carabel assumed that the closeness of that damn lich was affecting them. And close she had to be as they could hear her voice rammbling about her revenge on the Academy which didn’t let her graduate. Yes, they had also realized that it was ‘she’.

“Do you think we need to fight with her? Isn’t there anyone more appropriate for that?” Gislan muttered. “Maybe we could just sneak in and seal the spells on our spell books and then leave. They should have contacted some archwizard already.”

Carabel said nothing. The state of academy was depressing but oddly she felt nothing. She had to use all her mental power to suppress her memories. It was way too much like that time when her gradfather had gone crazy. He had almost succeeded to destroy his lab and all its surroundings. And this smell of burning and decay was exactly like then. Was it inevitable for necromancer to turn insane or were they already insane when they started to meddle with forbidden magic? Those were the questions Carabel had asked herself in the funerals and those were the questions she was asking now.

“It’s close now, so be prepared.” Carabel said without turning to her companions. “We just take this lift and there is our destination… and the lich.”

“We can still turn back.” Cornelius said and Carabel knew that he was not saying it for his sake but hers. He was surprisingly observant for being flamboyant snob and Carabel sensed that he had noticed that there was more into this for her than there was for the rest of them.

“What’s the point? We have came this far.” Carabel said without looking at Cornelius or Gislan. “We have long time ago passed the point of no return.”

To show her resolve she stepped on the lift and turned to others, rose her brow as if to say: “Shall we go”. For Carabel’s annoyance Cornelius and Gislan first looked at each other and then followed her to the lift.

* * *

 

“What is this?” Said emotionless voice as they arrived to the tower room. “Ah, some ignorant students.”

Carabel felt shivers going down her spine everytime the lich said something. They stepped in and immediately the flames of death blocked the doorway behind them. Carabel stared at the lich in front of her. She could see that in past this creature had been quite a beautiful woman.

“We have came here to banish you and your rotten magic out of this Academy.” Carabel said trying to sound calm and confident even if she felt nothing like that.

“Ah, no my dear students.” Chuggled the lich. “You have came here in same purpose as I. You have came here to seal those spells into your spell books and graduate from this accursed academy that didn’t let you graduate.”

“We are nothing like you!” Gislan shouted angrily.

“What’s the matter my dear?” Mocked the lich. “Do you deny that you have gathered nine parchement? Do you deny that you didn’t start your journey to achieve your graduation without the acceptance of this hole of snobs whose rules prevented you to graduate?”

“What if we did! It doesn’t make us like you!” Carabel snapped.

“Oh really?” The Lich started to laugh coldy. “So who do you think I am?”

“You are insane wizard who went too far in the abuse of forbidden magic.” Carabel said coldly.

“Hahaha, and how is what you are doing is any different?” The lich laughed. “I’m Anastasia and once I was like you my dear student council president. Desperate to graduate under the pressure of my family. And what this Academy did to me? They dared to reject me! They dared to say me that my magic is not stable enough so like you I took the power into my own hands.”

Carabel stared the lich speechless. When put that way it really seemed as if they were behaving just like this creature, no the wizard apprentice named Anastasia. Carabel felt how suffocating coldness started to creep into her body. In the end Anastasia was right. They had been behaving exactly like her. She just had started a lot before them.

“Oh my deary, you seem to understand.” Whispered Anastasia with silky voice. “My dear friend join me, give your spells to me and become my pupil. I will teach you everything you need to know and then we will rule this Academy and later the whole world.”

Carabel felt the soft touch of magic in her mind. She knew what Anastasia was doing. Anastasia needed a new body, a new tool for her future. That’s the problem of necromancy your body couldn’t last as long as your soul. Carabel straightened her stance and stared Anastasia, no the monster that had been Anastasia, in the eyes and threw all the magical power she had prepared on the face of that monster.

“I refuse.” Carabel said calmly and this time she didn’t need to pretend.

And then it all exploded. The magic, the fight, the feelings inside Carabel, she could feel how tears were rolling on her cheeks as she threw new spells against the lich. She knew that she was not fighting only against Anastasia but also against herself.

“Carabel! Calm down!” Gislan shouted. “You are wasting your powers!”

Carabel didn’t listen but then she felt a sharp pain on the back of her head. She instictively jumped sideways and turned around. She could see Gislan behind her. Gislan wawed her hand around and when Carabel followed her gesture with her eyes she realized her mistake: the lich had surrounded herself with magical power phylacters. All Carabel’s attacks had been in vain as Anastasia had just nullified her magic. Or actually, not all of it as Carabel could see how Cornelius was breaking down the phylacters and he was obviously prioritized the phylacters nullifying Carabels attacks.

“I was such and idiot.” Carabel muttered.

“Glad you noticed.” Gislan said wryly and ran towards the phylacters to help Cornelius.

* * *

 

All three of them were lying on the ground breathing heavily. It had felt like eternity but in the end they had won. Carabel stared at the sky visible from the holes of the broken roof. She felt nothing. In the end the lich had been right. They really had tried to take their future in their own hands and doing it they had broken the first law of the wizards: obey until you are ready to commad.

“Look! A shooting star!” Gislan shouted pointing upwards.

Carabel looked at the direction of Gislan’s finger and saw the shimmering star flying trough the sky and suddenly she felt calmness spreading all over her mind and body. It was time to finish this all. It was time to face the truth and accept that she was not ready yet. Her parents would yell at her and her brother would look at her like she was a failure but in the end it didn’t matter. That was something she had learnt during this journey.

“Well, it’s time to get up and throw those parchements on the face of Professor Butternut.” Carabel said jumping up and glancing to her friends, as friends they were, and all the three of them laughed.

* * *

 

“You have defeated the evil lich, and retrieved our missing parchments! Thank you!” Exlaimed Professor Butternut. “We will tuck them safe away.”

Carabel, Gislan and Cornelius glanced at each other and smiled. It was so like Professor Butternut to appear immediately after everything had calmed down. Also other students with their parchements had arrived.

“Well done. I’m sure this will look good on your grades.” Professor Butternutt continued his monologue.

Many of the other students sighed and muttered in dissapointment but Carabel felt somehow relieved. She had already sent a message to her family and got fiery response that she had ignored. She had decided to check that later after she had got good warm shower and slept at least for one night and day in her comfy bed in her personal chambers at the Astral Academy, no matter how accursed that Academy might be it would be her home a bit longer.


End file.
